the invisible man
by OmoideKeeper
Summary: why can't you just see me? seifer loves squall, but the iceburg doesn't see seifer...


the invisible man

* * *

i wish you'd look at me that way   
your beautiful eyes looking deep into mine   
telling me more than any words could say   
but you don't even know I'm alive   
baby to you, all i am is the invisible man...   
~98 Degrees   
------------------- 

It takes only a few years for children to grow up, to make friends they'll remember lifetimes later, when they need them the most, to laugh over a newfound toy hidden by a friend, to dream dreams of the future. It takes only a few hours for a child to realize the beauty within a newly opened flower, the sweetness of watching the sunset dancing upon the crashing waves, the joy of being with those they care about. It takes only a few minutes for a child to learn lessons to shape their worlds, to lose that newfound toy, to cry, to smile, to become themself. 

It takes only a few seconds to shatter everything. 

A few words. 

_"I'm not a little boy!" Seifer yelled at the masked figure, shaking with anger. How dare they... how dare they assume to know anything?!_

_Matron._

Goddamnit, Seifer thought to himself as he curled tighter into a ball on his bed in the dormitories, glad he'd scared off his roommate once again. It wasn't the first time he'd had that dream, of going to Timber, where Rinoa had her resistance force, of seeing that masked figure, hearing those words, those taunting words... finally disappearing into a shimmering wall made of nothing, chasing the single word projected into his mind with such skill. 

Matron. 

The memories rushed back, playing with children by the shore, the sound of seagulls as they flapped by, the taste of the salt spray as he danced in the water... it was all there. But what was really waiting for him in his memories, in Timber? 

What was he so scared of? 

"Seifer." 

Who the hell was going to bother him now?! 

"Seifer, what's wrong?" 

Concerned stormy eyes, for once full of emotion, stared down at him. Seifer could've laughed. So, the lion had finally cracked? He was finally showing something? His training partner, the silent one who never spoke, the single cadet who could send chills down Seifer's spine with a single glance, both from fear and from something else... 

"We were supposed to practice yesterday morning." 

So like him to do that, to state the reason he was there so matter of factly, to make Seifer remember how stupid it is to just be lying there sulking over a dream, all without saying a word to that fact. Hyne, he was talented. 

Even his stance spoke of something in him. Clad as he was in those ridiculously belted black leather pants, his jacket with the fur also in black, his pure white shirt adorned only with a single pendent, the lion he called Griever, his sole companion when he fought against Seifer as they trained on the rocks nearby the Garden. He emanated absolute lack of caring about what the hell anyone else wanted, what anyone else cared about. 

Seifer wished he could be him. 

Seifer wished he could kiss him. 

But Seifer would never get either of his wishes. Squall had everything he wanted in the carefully constructed world the lion lived in. The world Seifer wasn't part of it. 

"Well then, what're we waiting for?" Seifer managed to keep us his usual sneer, but something in Squall's eyes made him hesitate for a moment. Those stormy eyes, so full of conflicts, so changing, so unlike the boy they belonged to, and so like him at the same time. Eyes that could sear your soul with a bolt of ice, could steal your heart with a simple movement. 

"Seifer?" the soft, unassuming voice asked. 

"What?" Seifer shot back, his voice taking on that harshness he always used when talking to Squall. Better to have him hate me than to have him pity me, Seifer thought to himself, cursing the tone of his voice. 

"Hyperion." 

A single one word answer could bring Seifer crashing back to reality. Fighting to keep the anger on his face, Seifer picked up his gunblade with a sound akin to disgust. "Let's go." 

---------- 

Out on the rocks, a single cry lit out through the night as two young men walked side by side for a moment before taking up their positions. 

Don't you see me? Don't you see my shattering dreams? Who brought me to this, Squall? Who was the one who brought me to this? Don't you even know that I'm here? You're the one who never looks at me, no matter what I do... Why won't you look at me?! 

* * *

the garden   
chaos   
e-mail the miko 


End file.
